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Ron Paul: Bitcoin still in danger of being banned, Ukraine war could get out of control
(Kitco News) - Ron Paul, former Texas Congressman and host of The Liberty Report, said that instead of sending more aid to Ukraine, the U.S. should be "packing up and coming home."
"We shouldn't ever have been in there if we would have had a constitutional non-interventionist foreign policy," Paul told Michelle Makori, Editor-in-Chief of Kitco News.
Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an address to the U.S. Congress, pleading for American assistance in the war in Ukraine. Following Zelensky's impassioned speech, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine.
Dr. Paul believes that the U.S. should not be sending aid nor military assistance in any form to Ukraine.
He noted that although American troops are not officially on the ground in the warzone, the U.S. has been offering indirect military support already to Ukraine.
"We essentially do it, but we hide it. We send the advisors…the Ukrainians have a lot of our weapons. $800 billion is American money going into that battle, so we're very, very much involved. I think that one of the most important events leading up to the crisis that we have now is the coup that we had in 2014, and the evidence is overwhelming that we participated in this coup in order to get rid of a leader that was somewhat fair and balanced in treating Russia," he said.
Paul stated that the U.S. does not actually have a moral responsibility to be involved in another country's war, even in light of civilian casualties.
"There's nothing in the constitution that says that arbitrarily, we can get involved in foreign conflicts without a declaration of war and at times use a draft to send kids over there, or all the time take money from you, and if you don't have enough money in your bank account you can tax, they will just print the money and give us this economic system that we have," he said, adding that "we don't have the money. That's one thing. But, I don't think we have the moral authority to do it too. This whole of idea of giving more money and guns to the Ukrainians is a morally correct position…I think minding our own business is a morally correct position, with the right of individuals who can voluntarily participate in whatever they want to do."
On the likely progression of the war, Paul said that it's possible that the situation could escalate further.
"The thing keeps going on and on, and right now it's getting dangerously close to be uncontrolled. I certainly hope the predictors of a nuclear exchange are absolutely wrong. That's just something I don't even want to think about because it's so insane, but then again, you're forced to think about it when people start talking about it," he said.
On the outcome of the war, Paul predicted that this could be as protracted as the Vietnam War.
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"It's not going to come to an end gracefully and soon. It's going to end when we're exhausted, sort of like asking in 1962 when I was drafted, "when is Vietnam going to end?' And my answer is "when we're exhausted', he said. "Vietnam ended terribly because we lost the war, they believed guns would work. It didn't work. We had inflation in the 1970s and finally we just ran out of steam, and I think this is going to happen too."
Down the line, the U.S.'s status as a pre-eminent power will decline, and with this decline comes the downfall of the U.S. dollar as the de facto global reserve currency, Paul added.
"We will have less clout as issuing the reserve currency of the world, and it's already started in that direction. It never deserved much credit for being a reserve currency. It was just sort of accidental about how we came out of World War 2; we weren't bombed to smithereens, we still had a lot of wealth, we had all the gold, we had the directions, we controlled the IMF and the World Bank, we established NATO and….we've been running our empire that way," he said.
There are several factors that dictate whether a currency can be a global reserve currency.
"There's also the subjectivity of it: the wealth of a country, how much wealth is in the country, so other items help define the value of the currency. But if you keep printing [money], it loses its value and that's what's going to happen," he said.
On Bitcoin, Paul said that there is still a chance that governments can ban it outright, adding that Bitcoin performs more like a stock, having a close correlation with the broader stock market, than it does a hedge against market uncertainty.
For more information on the Federal Reserve's policies this year, as well as how the war in Ukraine would impact U.S.-China relations, watch the video above.
Follow Michelle Makori on Twitter: @MichelleMakori.
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